Water survival equipment such as life rafts and life vests are normally outfitted with switch activated lights, beacons or other forms of electronic life saving devices designed to assist in the search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger, particularly during water search and rescue operations. However, such life saving devices are only effective if activated, which may be accomplished by a user manually engaging a switch to supply electric power to the electronic life saving device. During the course of precarious and dangerous situations, for example a person being cast overboard with the onset of wave action, darkness, unconsciousness, or hypothermia, manual activation of a switch by such a person may be difficult and thereby jeopardize a successful search and rescue.
There exists in the prior art several manners which ensure such devices are thrown to activate electronic life saving devices. For instance, the use of water activated switches to engage life saving devices during water survival situations whereby the switch is automatically activated when entered into contact with water is well known in the art. Similarly, the use of a water activated switch with a manual over-ride to supplement activation and act as a backup measure should the water activated switch fail is also well known in the art.
One drawback of these prior art devices is that while they allow for automatic activation of a switch, they do not provide for a manual means to deactivate the device once it has been activated to thereby ensure the battery to the life saving device is preserved, for example, during daytime when the light is less visible, or to activate the switch there afterwards when the signaling light is more visible.
Furthermore, these prior art devices do not provide the flexibility of having a multiplicity of manners in which a switch may be activated and deactivated to therefore account for a variety of precarious and dangers situations.